South African Institute of Chartered Accountants - An Era of Change

An Era of Change

With the beginnings of globalization, the profession internationally felt the need to work more closely together. This led to the creation of IFAC in 1977 and South Africa was one of the founder members. Although the first woman CA(SA), Miss Elizabeth Kruger, qualified in 1917, it was not until 1977 that Wiseman Nkuhlu was admitted as the first black African CA(SA).

The 1980s proved to be an era of change. While SAICA established numerous committees to improve its service to members and to set standards, the profession recognised the need to open the doors to more black and female CAs(SA). A committee, under the chairmanship of Brian Hawksworth, began to promote this initiative. In 1987 the CAs' Eden Trust came into being as a joint effort between SAICA, the PAAB and the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants (ABASA) to provide bursaries and grow the number of black CAs(SA). The Eden Trust assisted over 100 black accountants to qualify. In 2002 its name was changed to the Thuthuka Bursary Fund and it was fully incorporated into the institute's transformation and growth strategy.

In 1999 SAICA took over the role of setting the Part 1 of the Qualifying Examination (QE I) from the PAAB (the predecessor of the IRBA), while the PAAB took over the responsibility for setting auditing standards, and with this came more clearly defined roles for both bodies.